


The Trouble with Chocolate Kisses

by madame_faust



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Kink Meme, M/M, Modern Biker AU, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-18
Updated: 2013-09-15
Packaged: 2017-11-29 17:13:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/689447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_faust/pseuds/madame_faust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fill for a prompt on the Kink Meme: "Little Kili hasn't grasped that Hershey's Kisses are just the chocolates, and not chocolates that come with kisses." It's basically that, but with the beginnings of Thilbo Bagginshield, paranoid blonde headmasters and Dis swearing a blue streak.</p><p>Now with additional chapters!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Trouble with Chocolate Kisses

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing, I am making no profit off this story. Read the original prompt and fill here: http://hobbit-kink.livejournal.com/4373.html?thread=9894677#t9894677 
> 
> I also can't claim to own the universe, **dreadelion** on Tumblr has been drawing biker!Thorin and friends and this was HEAVILY inspired by that (check out the art, if you haven't, it's soul-nourishing). It's set in England, since it feels wrong taking Tolkienverse out of the UK, but this hasn't been Britpicked, please let me know about any spelling errors/slang/cultural errors so I can fix them. Also also, turning Dwarf Names into People Names is hard.

Diana Durin (nickname: Dis, short for “Disaster”) didn’t think being called in to a teacher’s classroom after hours  should make her feel _this_ uncomfortable. In the first place, she was twenty-five and had been out of school for ages. In the second, her youngest son’s teacher was about a foot shorter than her and wearing a _cardigan_ of all things. He smiled as he shook her hand and looked utterly harmless, but she couldn’t help feeling she’d done something wrong.  
  
“Bill Baggins, it’s a pleasure to see you again,” he said. He had a plain, everyday sort of face, but one that was so comforting in its familiarity, that Dis felt herself relax just a bit as she sat down - in a proper chair, thankfully not in one of those child-sized creations she squeezed into on Parents’ Night. “Thanks for coming in to see us, Ms Durin, hopefully this won’t take up too much of your time.”  
  
“Yeah, sorry, I look a fright,” she smiled apologetically. Her black jeans, black vest and tattoos probably didn’t pass muster as far as dress code went, but she was a _parent_ not a child and it had been years since she herself wore a kilt and a blazer, so she shouldn’t feel guilty. “I’ve got to be at work in an hour.”  
  
The leather jacket on her lap was a necessity, Thorn would be by to swap his motorcycle for her car - well, it was the ‘family’ car, really - so he could drive the sprogs back home. Killi and Phil were probably bored out of their minds waiting in the hall for him, the school had a ‘no videogames’ policy, so their DSes were left beside their booster seats every morning.  
  
“Where do you work?” Mr Baggins asked, sounding genuinely interested. Well, she supposed he would be, given what her office attire consisted of.  
  
“Bartender,” she admitted, with a slightly embarrassed smile. Mr Baggins seemed just the sort of teacher who disapproved of such an occupation. He’d probably echo the refrain she heard a lot in her own misspent youth, ‘wasting your potential.’  
  
But he didn’t tut or raise his eyebrows or cluck his tongue or anything she expected, on the contrary, his pleasant expression grew even pleasanter and he said, “That’s impressive, I’m always amazed the number of cocktails some people can keep in their heads. I can make a decent Gimlet, which is no use to me whatsoever as I hate lime.”  
  
Dis laughed nervously, tucking her long dark hair behind her ears, grimacing as it tugged her industrial piercing. “Eh, I’ve got a good memory. Still nothing better than a properly poured pint of stout.”  
  
“Well, that’s an _art_ ,” Mr Baggins acknowledged. “Isn’t that like champagne? It’s only legitimate if it comes from Dublin?”  
  
“D’you know, I think the French loosened up on that rule a few years ago, but I’ll be damned if the Irish will - er. Sorry. Darned.”  
  
Mr Baggins laughed and waved a hand carelessly, “That’s alright, now, if Killian said that in class, there’d be a problem, but I think once you’re allowed to drink and join the army, you’re allowed to swear.”  
  
“Oh, so it wasn’t swearing, then?” Dis asked brightly. “That’s a relief, I watch my mouth around the kids, I really do, but you know, little pitchers and all that.”  
  
“Of course,” Mr Baggins nodded. “And I only teach Year One, by the time they’re in secondary school, they’re saying things I’ve never even heard of. Makes me feel old.”  
  
Being a bartender kept Dis on the cutting edge of all the latest innovations in swearing (and probably a lot of other things Mr Baggins didn’t need to know about) so she just smiled and glanced at the clock on the wall. Where the fuck was Thorn and, more importantly, where were his keys?  
  
“So, if it wasn’t for swearing, can I ask what I’ve been called in about? The secretary didn’t say over the phone.”

Some odd expression flitted over Mr Baggins’s face, if Dis had to guess, she’d say it was embarrassment, but she’d only met the man, twice before and briefly. Last year they talked about Phil’s Pokemon obsession (which he assured her was totally normal at that age) and this year they discussed Killi’s love of Legos and dragons and what a pity it was that conkers was no longer allowed in the schoolyard.  
  
“The headmaster should be by any minute, he wants to have a word. Killian’s not in trouble, sorry, I should have made that clear from the first, but it’s just...it’s such a little matter, I didn’t want to trouble you, but - ah, Mr. Greenwood’s here at last.”  
  
The man who walked in was sharply dressed for someone whose primary job was to look after children for eight hours a day. He was wearing a crisp grey business suit, top button securely in place and tie still perfectly neat. His head was crowned with pin-straight platinum blonde hair that _had_ to come directly from a bottle, it practically glowed as it caught the light. Dis got up and shook his hand - oh, _there_ was that disapproving look she’d been expecting from Mr. Baggins.  
  
“Mrs Durin - ” he began, but Dis cut him off.  
  
“Ms Durin, Mrs Durin’s my mum and she’s dead. Er. Or, ah, Diana. Whatever.” Inwardly she cursed herself. Adults did not say ‘whatever’ to other adults. Nor did they bring up their deceased parents ten seconds after being introduced.  
  
“Ms Durin,” the headmaster amended. “Thank you for coming in on such short notice. So sorry your husband couldn’t make it.”  
  
Mr Baggins coughed and Dis felt herself go a little red. Her husband would never make it to one of these meetings for the simple fact that she’d never had a husband before in her life. She had a boyfriend, once, and a good one too, but he’d gone the way of her mother - well, not exactly, overdose, not a stroke, but that’s life for you - and that was yet more information the headmaster most definitely did not need to know.  
  
“Haven’t got one...actually,” she said, giving them the truncated version of her life story. No husband, two kids eighteen months apart and a single tattooed mum who worked as a bartender to make ends meet. Yeah, no doubt, Dis was definitely a statistic in some research study on Britain’s decaying moral values. When she was a teenager, that would have made her proud. As she edged ever closer to thirty, it just made her tired.  
  
Mr Baggins saved them from descending into a never ending spiral of TMI hell by interjecting, “Anyway the reason you’re here - ”  
  
“Right, right,” Mr Greenwood said briskly. “There was a small...impropriety. This morning, during...”  
  
“Maths,” Mr Baggins replied. “We were playing a little game with fractions, Around the World, students solve problems and get to move their seats up and Killi did very well, he got second place.”  
  
“Oh, good!” Dis replied, happy there was at least one bit of good news to report, but in general, she preferred the delivery the other way round. Give her the bad first so she knew she had something to look forward to.  
  
“Yes, he did well,” her son’s teacher nodded. “And I like to give the kids a treat at the end of the week, I had some chocolates with me - ”  
  
“None of the children in Killian’s class have any food allergies,” Mr Greenwood reported proudly, as if it was his own personal accomplishment.  
  
Mr Baggins nodded, “Er, right. Well, I gave Killi his and he...erm...sort of...leaned up and, er. Kissed me.”  
  
Dis’s first inclination was to laugh, but she immediately knew that would be a Bad Idea since both headmaster and teacher were looking at her anxiously. “Oh,” she said, bouncing her foot nervously. “That’s...awkward. Sorry, he’s not been ill, if you're worried about catching something.”  
  
This time Mr Baggins laughed and Dis tittered like an idiot. Was that all this was about? Killi kissed his teacher? Well, it was weird, the other students might tease him a bit, maybe accuse him of having a crush, but he’d survive. If it wasn’t that, they’d probably get on him about something else, it was how children operated. Some other kid would probably wet his pants next week and they'd have a new target. Why they couldn’t have told her this over the phone was beyond her.

“I’m sure he’s very healthy,” Mr Baggins replied. “Well, we just wanted to let you know, so you can - ”  
  
“Tell him that’s not alright for school, sure,” Dis nodded. Killi was the sweetest little thing, always after kisses and cuddles and everyone who knew him was only too happy to oblige when he turned those big brown eyes on them. The teenage years would be hell, he’d have every girl (or guy, or both, whatever, Dis came from a nonjudgmental place) wrapped around his little fingers. She’d have to stuff his pockets with condoms before he left the house.  
  
Mr Baggins smiled and Dis smiled and she figured the meeting was over and she could get to work - but Mr Greenwood was most definitely not smiling, so she didn’t get up to leave. In fact, he was doing the opposite of smiling and that ‘I’m in trouble’ feeling that she’d shaken off earlier was back with a vengeance. “There is a bit more to it than that,” he said disapprovingly.  
  
“Really?” Dis asked, raising an eyebrow. “I mean, it’s...surely he’s not the first student in the history of the world to kiss his teacher. I called one of my teachers ‘mum’ when I was his age, these things happen. You didn’t give him Chocolate Kisses, did you?”  
  
“As a matter of fact, I did.”  
  
“Oh! Alright, I know what happened,” Dis said, relieved that her child wasn’t just going around whoring it up with his teachers without a rational reason. “It’s completely ridiculous, he...okay, so he’s a child, he takes things a bit literally sometimes, he expects a kiss when you give him...a Kiss. We bought them like mad when they first came to Asda and his brother wanted to know what they were and we said they were Chocolate Kisses and Killi asked if that meant you got a kiss when you ate one and...we thought it was cute and we haven’t really dropped it.”  
  
“Ah, there we are!” Mr Baggins looked meaningfully at Mr Greenwood. “Mystery solved! I’ll just give them Mars bars from now on.”  
  
The headmaster sighed and looked as if he wanted to throttle them both. “There is the issue of the sort of kiss it was. I do not know if you are aware of the statistics, Ms Durin, but sexual behaviour in children - ”  
  
“Sexual behaviour?” Dis asked incredulously. “He’s _six_ , there’s nothing sexual about it.”  
  
“He did kiss Mr Baggins on the lips.”  
  
“Well, I kiss him on the lips all the time. Only I don’t see anything sexual about it because he’s a _child_.” Dis gave the headmaster a look that walked the line between outraged and disgusted. _This_ was why they called her in? They thought her six-year-old child was a pervert? Talk about the moral decline of the British people, only it wasn’t the tattooed single mums you had to watch out for, it was the tight-arsed, blonde, overly primped men looking for sexually deviant acts among primary school kids.  
  
“There are a number of names on your sons’ list of approved relations to pick them up from school,” Mr Greenwood pressed on, taking out an honest-to-God _clipboard_ from his briefcase. “Yourself, of course, then a Thornton Durin - ” The door to the classroom swung open and the second individual on her sons’ approved pick-up list walked through the door.  
  
Thorn was a sight for sore eyes, every 6’2, bearded, ponytailed, muscled, black-clad bit of him. Dis was entirely too old to go running for her big brother and tell him her sons’ schoolmasters were picking on her, but she _really wanted to._  
  
“Keys,” he said without preamble, tossing them to Dis who caught them deftly. “Lads told me you were still in here. Problem?”  
  
“Excuse me, who are you?” Mr Greenwood raised an eyebrow.  
  
“Thornton Durin. Problem?”  
  
“I thought you said you weren’t married,” the headmaster made the simple statement sound like an accusation.  
  
This time the look on Dis’s face was decidedly disgusted now. “He’s my _brother_ ,” she said.  
  
The headmaster consulted his clipboard again. “And you live with him?”  
  
“Yeah,” Thorn answered, resting a hand on the back of his sister’s chair. “Problem?”  
  
“No, no problem,” Mr Baggins smiled placatingly. “Mr Greenwood, the school’s headmaster, just wondered why Killian and Philip have so many, erm, guardians.”

“My work schedule’s incredibly fu...irregular,” Dis explained. “I’ve got the bartending job, but I’m in a band, y’see, and the gigs can run quite late or else we’re out of town. Most of the people on that list are family.”  
  
“A band?” Mr Baggins asked, pouncing on the new topic like a lion on the throat of a wounded gazelle. “What sort of music do you play?”  
  
“Er, sort of folk/punk rock/traditional? Think pub songs, but with electric guitar. And slamdancing.”  
  
“That sounds very cool, you play around here any?”  
  
“A fair bit, yeah, we’ve got a show at Finnegan’s Wake Saturday, not a bad crowd there, mostly students, but we’ve got kind of a cult following. You should come down, if you’ve got time.”  
  
“Sounds great! I might do - “ A meaningful cough broke up their dialogue and Mr Greenwood inclined his head deliberately toward the list he evidently meant to get through.  
  
“Dwain and Blaise Fundinson?” the headmaster gave the names out rapid-fire, like it was a test they were supposed to pass.  
  
“Cousins,” Thorn replied, frowning deeply at the headmaster.  
  
“Gavin and Harriet Innes?”  
  
“Cousins,” Dis said, then clarified, “Gavin’s the cousin, Harry’s his wife, they’ve got a son in school here. We carpool, sometimes, save the ozone layer.” That last was utter bollocks, coming from a someone who spent most of her free time joyriding around the countryside on a motorcycle, but they didn’t have to know that.  
  
“Robert, Brian and William Urquhart? Are they family as well?”  
  
“Er...friends _like_ family." It sounded far less suspicious in her head than it did coming out of her mouth.  
  
Thorn let out a sigh that sounded suspiciously like a growl and asked, “Just what exactly are you trying to prove with the inquisition?”  
  
“I’m not trying to prove anything, Mr Durin,” the headmaster said, all too calmly. “I merely want to bring it to your attention that children who exhibit sexually suggestive behaviours at young ages may have been exposed to such behaviours. I also could not help noticing that the majority of the individuals on your sister’s approved persons list are male and statistically - ”  
  
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Dis rose, forgetting her manners entirely as she rose to her feet, holding her jacket balled up in her arms like a shield. “Did you seriously call me in here to tell me you think my son’s been molested by one of his uncles?”  
  
“By your own admission, you are not frequently at home,” the headmaster said in such an infuriatingly superior voice that Dis wanted to slap him.  
  
“You don’t know anything about me!” she railed. “You didn’t even know I wasn’t married. You don’t know my son, you don’t know my life and you’re trying to take something totally innocent and make it disgusting because of some crap you read in a book somewhere!” Taking a deep breath, she tried to gather herself but it was damn hard when all she wanted to do was punch a wall.  
  
“Look. I understand, you’re trying to do right by your students,” she managed through gritted teeth. “Great. And, god forbid, if some child in this school actually _was_ in that kind of situation, I’d want you to be vigilant, but that is _not_ my child. On paper, sure, they look like they’re ‘at risk,’ but they’ve got all the love in the world, I swear, everyone on that list loves them like they’re their own.”  
  
“I think it’s wonderful you have so much support,” Mr. Baggins blurted out earnestly. “You know, there are children in two-parent households who don’t thrive and children from...unconventional family situations who couldn’t be happier and, Randall really, the thing about the chocolates makes _sense_ , doesn’t it?”

The headmaster did not seem at all pleased by the turn this interview had taken. He’d walked in assuming he was going to give a young mother a wake-up call about being irresponsible with her childrens’ guardianship and now _he_ was being lectured about the merits of non-traditional families. He needed a drink.  
  
“I suppose it does,” he admitted at last, now wishing for the meeting to end so he could get home, put his feet up and spend time with his own son (and a glass of red wine). “But I will be monitoring this situation for any future incidents.”  
  
“Shouldn’t be any!” Mr Baggins said brightly. “Mars bars from now on! Now, ah, Diana, pleasure to meet you and your, ah, brother.” He stuck his hand out and the sister shook it vigorously, smiling at him lopsidedly. The brother hesitated, but took the offered limb, crushing his fingers uncomfortably in an iron grip.  
  
Dis did not spare a moment for the headmaster, “Got to dash,” she said, twirling her brother’s keys round her fingers. She paused long enough in the corridor to kiss her waiting sons goodbye and added, “Killi, love, don’t go kissing your teachers anymore, eh?” and was out the door in a flash.  
  
The headmaster was gone nearly as quickly as Dis was, leaving Thorn alone with his nephew’s teacher. “Sorry about all this,” the small, mousy man said, hands going nervously into his pockets. “I told Randall it probably was just an odd thing, but he insisted. All the stories he sees on the news have him paranoid, I think, he doesn’t want to be _that_ headmaster whose face is in the _Mail_ with some stupid headline, like ‘Why Can’t Schools Protect Our Youth’ or something.” The taller, infinitely more intimidating man said nothing. “Er. Killi’s a good boy. So’s Phil, I had him last year. Believe me, I’ve seen some kids who come from rather bad environments and your nephews clearly don’t. You can tell.”  
  
Thorn grunted, patting his jacket pockets and frowning. “Thanks,” he said shortly. “My sister does well with them, I help out where I can...damn...”  
  
“I’m sure you’re both doing splendidly.”  
  
“No, it’s not that - ah, thanks again, but she took her keys with her.” Two little heads, one dark, the other light, poked their heads into the classroom.  
  
“Are we going now, Uncle Thorn?” Phil asked. “We’re bored.”  
  
“And hungry,” Killi added. “Mr Baggins, have you got any more Kisses?”  
  
Bill laughed nervously, “Sorry, Killi, all out for today.”  
  
“That’s my desk!” Phil said suddenly, lunging forward and dragging his little brother by the hand. “See? I had all my things in there, this is where I sat, Uncle Thorn!”  
  
“Great,” his uncle replied, distractedly going through all his pockets again. He threw his keys at Dis, she...didn’t give him any in return. Thorn didn’t blame his sister for being distracted at the time, what with that poncy tosser leering at them like they were criminals for daring to have people in their kids (oh yeah, he wasn’t their father, but those were _his_ boys) lives who weren’t blood relatives. Still inconvenient as _fuck_.  
  
“I sit over here!” Kili added, not to be outdone. “I get to sit in the back ‘cos Alicia can’t see the board and I can. Look, here’s my things. My eraser and my pencil sharpener and my ruler - ”  
  
“Great, Killi, that’s great,” Thorn said, patting the back pocket of his (rather form-fitting) jeans one last time. Bill suddenly became very interested in the classroom hedgehog, who was currently dozing in his cage. “Alright, lads, sorry, but we’ve got to take the bus to mum’s work.”  
  
Phil groaned, “ _Why_? I want to go home! The car’s just outside.”  
  
“I haven’t got  the keys,” his uncle informed him. “Let’s go - sorry, do you know when the bus comes by?”

“Not for another twenty minutes - er,” Bill swallowed. When he was in teacher-mode, it was easy for him to overlook the parade of DILFs that streamed through his classroom doors, but one could only put up a resistance against butch, bearded biker-types for so long. He was only human. And he wasn’t even his student’s father, he was an UILF, which wasn’t even a _thing_ and so a tiny bit of oogling would not go amiss. “Look, this might be weird, but I could drive you lot. I don’t have any boosters, but how long’s the drive?”  
  
“Maybe ten minutes,” Thorn replied looking doubtful.  
  
“We don’t need boosters!” Killi told his teacher. “Our Uncle Dwain took us for a ride in his truck and we sat in the back and there weren’t even any seatbelts.”  
  
“That was on a country road and there weren’t cars either,” Thorn clarified for the teacher’s benefit. “And it was...an emergency.”  
  
“It wasn’t,” Phil frowned up at his uncle.  
  
“Sure it was,” Thorn lied, but Bill just shrugged.  
  
“It wouldn’t be any trouble at all, and I’d hate to leave you waiting.”  
  
Thorn was torn between the proper response which was refusal and his desire to get the boys settled in with their homework and dinner in the oven before midnight. “Alright,” he said at last. “If you’re sure you don’t mind. I can give you some cash - ”  
  
“Don’t worry about that, it’s not a problem,” Bill assured him. “I’m Bill, by the way, Bill Baggins, I don’t think we were properly introduced.”  
  
“Thorn Durin,” he reached out and shook the smaller man’s hand, swallowing it up in his own meaty paw. He was cute, in an absent-minded professor way. Dis joked last year that Phil’s new teacher was just his type. Thorn claimed not to know what she was talking about but she just grinned and said something about how he always went for those geeky, quiet types. Mostly because he was a geeky, quiet type himself, he just hid it better than some. “Thanks, erm, for the third time.”  
  
“Don’t mention it,” Bill said, picking up his coat and his keys.  
  
Killi looked positively _thrilled_ at the prospect of getting in a teacher’s car. Up until this point, he was not entirely convinced that they actually left the school at the end of the day, he thought they closed themselves into the supply cupboard with the paste and markers and slept there.  
  
“Is that your car, Mr Baggins?” he asked, pointing to the ancient Volkswagon in the car park. “It’s so cool!” ‘Cool’ was one word for it, but ‘raggedy’ might be more appropriate. It was a vehicle that had seen better days, Frankencar, his friends called it. The majority of the car was orange, but the boot was green and the driver’s side door blue. Bill called it Frank.  
  
“That still run?” Thorn asked, in half amusement, half apprehension.  
  
“It does,” Bill assured him. “Don’t let the tape on the sideview mirror fool you, it’s in tip-top shape, Jeremy Clarkson himself couldn’t find a thing to complain about.”  
  
Thorn laughed, “I’m sure _that’s_ not true.” But he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth and once the boys were safely buckled in, he sat in the passenger side, knees squashed up against the dash uncomfortably.  
  
Bill laughed that nervous laugh of his and licked his lips, “It’s not really made for, ah, tall people.”  
  
“That’s alright,” Thorn acknowledged. “Most things aren’t.”  
  
The teacher turned a little pink in the cheeks, but Thorn assumed it was because the heat kicked on as he drove them away from the school. The rest of the ride consisted of Thorn trying to direct Bill to the bar where his sister worked while his nephews offered contradictory directions in the backseat.  
  
“Don’t go through the roundabout!” Phil warned them. “Mum says it’s too busy and takes forever to get in!”  
  
“Go left! Go left!” Killi shouted as Thorn told his teacher to take a right. “It’s faster that way!”  
  
“Uncle Thorn’s not good at going places,” Phil informed Bill apologetically. “Mum’s getting him a sat nav for Christmas.”  
  
“I don’t actually need it,” Thorn said in his own defense. “I just like the idea of Michael Caine giving me directions.”

Twenty minutes later (well, it was ten when Dis did the driving), they pulled into an empty spot in front of the bar. It was early enough in the afternoon that very few patrons would be inside. “I’ll just be a sec,” Thorn said, bashing his head painfully on the frame of the car as he tried to get out. In an effort to save face, he acted as though he hadn’t actually nearly brained himself on quality German engineering, even as his nephews winced in the backseat at the noise the collision made.  
  
The lights were low, but he spied Dis’s tall, broad shouldered figure almost immediately. Her hair was what gave her away if nothing else, buzzed at the sides, but she hadn’t cut the top since Vic died six years ago and it hung down her back in a long, black sheet. “Hey!” she called, clearly surprised to see him. Then, her eyes went wide and she clapped a hand to her forehead. “Oh, fuck, I’ve got the keys!”  
  
“You have,” Thorn said, holding out a hand expectantly for them. Dis unhooked them from her belt loop, apologizing all the while.  
  
“I’m so fucking sorry, that arsehole made me so angry, I couldn’t see straight when I walked out of there. Do you need money for the bus?”  
  
Her brother shook his head, “Nah, Killi’s teacher gave us a ride.”  
  
Both her dark brows made for her hairline. “Seriously? That was nice of him, will he take money for petrol?”  
  
“Probably not, he’s...nice. That teacher.”  
  
“Yeah, he is, too bad his boss is a wanker.” She paused, then grinned conspiratorially. “He’s nice, or he’s _nice_?”  
  
“Dis.”  
  
“What? Oh, I _told_ you, didn’t I tell you he was just your sort? This is brilliant, I’m brilliant, I must’ve organised this whole thing subconsciously. Have you got his number yet? Get his number. Here’s a napkin!” She thrust a clean cocktail napkin under his nose and repeated, “Get his number!”  
  
“I don’t want to get his number!” Thorn protested, holding his hands up in the universal gesture of surrender. “Any, he probably doesn’t want to give me his number seeing as how I just concussed myself getting out of his car, like a bloody fool.”  
  
Dis sighed as if her brother was being needlessly thick. “That just makes you endearingly clumsy! He probably wants to take you back to his place for an ice pack and loads of sex.”  
  
“God, you’re too much,” Thorn shook his head fondly. “Get your mind out of the gutter. I need to get back to the kids, I’ll see you when you get home.”  
  
“Get his number!” his sister called after him as he left. “I’ll bet you haven’t had a decent shag for ages, you’re always grumpy when you’re shag-less!”  
  
Thorn did not dignify her accusations with a response, he just walked out of the bar, keys in hand. He settled back into the passenger seat (taking more care on re-entry than he did with the exit) and found himself looking at that bland, smiling face again. Did his cardigan have patches on the elbows? Oh, of course it did. Just his luck.  
  
“Got everything okay?” Bill asked.  
  
“Yep,” Thorn said curtly. “Just fine.”  
  
“How’s your...ah, head?”  
  
Unconsciously raising a hand to the place he’d hit, Thorn found the spot tender and painful, as was to be expected. “I’ll live.”  
  
“We’ve got some ice packs at the school,” Bill said and Thorn wondered whether or not his sister might actually be psychic. “I could get one for you - ”  
  
“No thanks, I'm fine - ”  
  
A small foot connected enthusiastically with the back of Thorin’s seat. “You should get one!” Killi urged from behind him. “Ice packs are cool!” Every child who was bumped, scraped or had their feelings hurt thought they needed an ice pack. It was the mark of a Serious Injury and a point of pride for students to brag to their friends at lunch that their injury was so severe it merited the application of a mysterious frozen blue liquid to some part of their anatomy.

“We’re going right home once we get back to the car,” Thorn said sternly and that was the end of the discussion. The ride back to the school was fairly quiet, only the hum of a Dropkick Murphys CD provided any background noise. Predictably, Phil and Killi passed out in the backseat and hardly stirred as Thorn transferred them from one vehicle to the other. “Thanks...for the fourth time,” he said, awkwardly to Bill, looking shorter than ever, still seated in his tiny car.  
  
“No problem, happy to help,” he smiled up at Thorn. “Ah...so...see you around? Maybe at your sister’s concert? I really think I’ll head down, sounds like my kind of music...do you ever go?”  
  
“Yeah, if I can find someone to watch the boys,” Thorn replied, leaning back against the door of his sister’s car. “Might go down for a pint or two.”  
  
“Great!” Bill licked his lips again, an endearing little tic of his. Thorn found himself wishing he’d saved that napkin. “So...see you then. Then. Right. Bye!”  
  
And he sped off, leaving a vaguely besotted Thornton Durin in his wake. In the backseat, his nephews were beginning to stir from their naps. Thorn got into the car and started the engine, looking behind at Killi who was rubbing his eyes and reaching for his DS.  
  
“Ki,” he asked. “What exactly did you do that you mum had to go to the school today?”  
  
“I kissed Mr Baggins,” he said, turning his game system on.  
  
“Why’d you do that?” his brother asked.  
  
Killi shrugged his small shoulders, “He gave me a Chocolate Kiss, I thought you were supposed to.”  
  
Phil sighed with all the age and wisdom of his seven years, “Not if it a _teacher_ gives you a Kiss, buttface. That’s only for family, stupid.”  
  
“Don’t call your brother stupid,” Thorn said automatically, shifting the car into Drive. “But Killi, don’t go round kissing your teachers, eh?”  
  
“Oh, I won’t, Mummy already told me,” his nephew said. Then, looking up, he caught his uncle’s eye in the rearview mirror. “I guess it was a little stupid.”  
  
“It’s wasn’t stupid,” Thorn replied evenly, turning on the radio. _But if any Durin’s going to be kissing Bill Baggins in the near future,_ he thought to himself, _I’d rather it was me._


	2. The Trouble with Texting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone in Thorn Durin's life thinks he should be with Bill Baggins. It's 10% endearing, 10% creepy and 100% none of their fucking business. Oh, does that add up to 120%? Thorn doesn't care, he just wishes they'd lay off. (Probability of that happening? 0%)

The Durins were gathered round the telly for some family time before the night’s gig. Like most 21st century families, this period of bonding consisted of Phil and Killi lying on the ground playing Hungry Hippos while Thorn sat on one end of the sofa watching a _Wallander_ repeat with the sound off and subtitles on. Dis was curled up on the other end re-reading Caitlin Moran’s _How to Be a Woman_ and giggling to herself every five pages. Thorn’s feet were on the coffee table and he twitched when his sister’s new phone vibrated loudly enough to be heard over the plastic-on-plastic gnashing of hippo mouths and marbles.

The caller ID was a picture of a woman with a black eye and a tuft of violently red curls cascading from an otherwise bald head, covering the other eye. Thorn picked the phone up before his sister got to it, frowning at the touch screen. “How do you answer it?” he asked, utterly perplexed.

“Give it here, gramps,” Dis extended her hand and unlocked the screen. “Hi - outside? Haven’t you got a key?” Pulling the phone away from her head, she whistled to get the boys’ attention. “Which one of you wants to answer the door for Auntie Harry?”

“Me!” Phil and Killi shouted at once, abandoning the game and racing for the door, wrenching it back hard enough that the handle slammed into the wall, widening an already sizeable dent in the plaster.

“Security deposit!” mother and uncle yelled after them too late to stop the damage.

“Gimli!” the boys cheered at the bottom of the stairs, as though they’d been separated for years rather than the mere two hours between the ride home from school and Harry’s bringing her son over while she babysat. Gimli was, obviously, a nickname. His real name was James, but Killi had some trouble pronouncing ‘Jimmy’ when he was a bitty thing. Rather than correct his brother, Phil went along with the garbled lisping and it was altogether too adorable to ignore.

The three boys came running up the stairs and managed to dent the wall yet _again_ , since doors needed to be pushed open as wide and hard as possible to make the most dramatic entrance.

“Heya, Gimmers,” Dis said, ruffling his hair as she made for her room to retrieve her boots and fiddle.

“Hi!” he chirruped brightly as he flopped down on the floor to load his hippo’s...(trough?)...thingy with marbles that would probably all be disappeared by the time Dis and Thorn got back from the pub.

Harry was up a minute later, looking exactly as she did in her caller ID photo, only without a great big shiner. “Hi, Thorn,” she blew a kiss at the bearded gent who tossed the television remote on the floor beside the kids. “Where’s your sister?”

“Bedroom,” he replied and Harry tore off in that direction, finding Dis half-hidden in the cupboard, one unlaced Doc Marten on, clearly in search of its fellow. Without preamble, she gave her a hard slap on the bum greeting her warmly, “Hey, bitch.”

“Hi, slag,” Dis replied with affection, wielding a scuffed boot over her head in a pose of triumph.

Harry favoured her with some serious side-eye. “When was the last time you shaved under your arms?”

“Brian and Tara’s wedding,” Dis grunted as she tried putting her boot on without unlacing it, which was easier said than done.

“...that was a year ago.”

“It’s oppressive post-First World War product placement bollocks. Fuck the patriarchy, I’m liberated.”

“I think the word you’re looking for is lazy,” Harry informed her, patting Dis on the head. “Whatever, let your arm-hair flow free in the breeze, fire arrows into the glen, but if you grow a lady-’stache, I’m having an intervention.”

“Duly noted,” Dis grinned, getting her shoes on at last and clomping out into the sitting room. The boys retired to Phil and Killi’s room, if the sounds of mayhem and destruction within were any clue, they’d moved on from force-feeding moulded plastic pieces of African wildlife and were playing the Wii. Thorin got up from the couch, tucking his wallet in his back pocket, ready to go, but Harry paused in the archway and eyed him critically.

“What?” Thorn asked, looking down at himself, assuming there was some stain or other on his shirt that made her frown at him so deeply.

“Denim on denim?” Harry asked. “Are you really wearing that?”

“Er...yeah. That was the plan.”

“For a first date?” the redhead looked at Dis despairingly. “And you were going to let him out of the house like that? What sort of a sister are you? And _you_ , sir.” She could only shake her head in abject disappointment. “You’re a terrible gay.”

“Aww, don’t bully him,” Dis said, waving off Harry’s criticism. “Poor lamb.”

“It’s not a date,” Thorn insisted, determined to be dignified about this since in only two days it seemed all of their acquaintances heard and agreed with his sister that, yes, he needed to get laid and it absolutely should be with her sons’ primary school teacher. It was too late at this point in his life to make new friends, so he usually endeavored to ignore them when they made absurd statements. It never lasted long.

“Should I change?” he asked his sister a moment later, frowning himself at his choice of clothing. Fashion was never a priority, he spent most of his day elbow-deep in other people’s cars, if it was clean, he thought it was acceptable for wearing out.

Rolling her eyes, Dis said, “No, you look fine. I like it, I think it enhances your gruff Northern charm.”

Thorin looked at his sister, incredulously raising both dark brows. “I haven’t got charm. I’ve just got gruff Northern.”

“Which is it’s own sort of charming,” Harry assured him. “Have you seen _North and South?_ ”

“...no.”

“It’s a miniseries, we don’t have time for a recap,” Dis said, brow furrowing as she tried to decipher a text from Gav. It read: **where r u? im 2prkd** “What does that even mean?” she asked Harry who peered down at the phone.

“He says he’s double parked,” she replied confidently.

“Why does your husband text like an eleven year old girl?”

“That’s between him and his therapist,” Harry sighed, giving Dis a shove toward the door. “Off you go, have fun! Don’t forget contraception!”

It was her favorite farewell, male or female, gay or straight, regardless of whether or not the person who was leaving could _make_ a baby with their chosen sexual partner, she always reminded them of the importance of contraception. She liked to think she was doing her part to help humanity in that way and neither Dis nor Thorn wanted to be the ones to disillusion her.

Gav was idling the car in the street and slammed his fist down on the horn when he didn’t think the siblings were legging it quickly enough. “Fuckin’ finally,” he groused when Dis slid into the passenger seat (having _bolted_ for the door handle before her brother could claim the front seat) leaving Thorn to squeeze in the back next to Gimli’s booster. “I’ve got _amps_ to set up and all.”

“Well, if you texted in some human language rather than...I dunno, runes or whatever the fuck you’ve got programmed in your phone - ”

“It was completely legible!” Gavin protested, frown lost within his bushy auburn beard. “Thorn understood it.”

“What’s that?” he asked, not sure why he was being drawn into the debate at all.

“I texted you too, didn’t you read it?”

Thorn removed his ancient flip phone form his shirt pocket and furrowed his brow at it. “I don’t think mine texts.”

“‘Course it does, bloody Luddite,” Gav rolled his eyes and Dis laughed, holding her hand out for her brother’s phone. A few quick pokes later, she had the message displayed and handed it back to him.

“...2 p-r-k-d?”

“Double parked!” he exploded, his unruly mop of hair flapping in agitation. The beard was really necessary on Gav, between his freckles and round cheeks, he looked about five without it. “Illegally! And there’s always cops around here, you know that, it’s like you think I’ve got money to burn on tickets.”

“Why didn’t you just _say_ that?”

“I was trying to save time,” he groaned, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“You could’ve called,” Thorn pointed out and that simple observation stunned Gav into silence. He used his phone for a variety of functions, paying bills, texting, checking email, wasting time playing Angry Birds. Calling people was not one of its primary functions. Come to think of it, he wasn’t sure he knew how to make a phone call.

This and the other mysteries of the universe were pondered at length for the remainder of the trip. Gav informed them that there was no way they were letting him unload all the band’s gear by himself after they made him late and so Thorn and Dis unfolded the dollies and pushed, pulled and carried with a minimum of complaining.

The rest of the band was already there. Rob, a skinny bloke with an impressive Fu Manchu mustache, spied them and hooted, “You’re a roadie now, Princess Di?”

“Fuck off!” she replied cheerfully. “Get off your lazy arse and give us a hand!”

The case for her fiddle was tucked under her arm, Rob took it from her, ignoring the heavy speaker she was hauling on stage and set off immediately for the bar. “Real gentleman, that one,” Thorn muttered, giving his sister a searching look. “What is it you see in him, again?”

Dis grunted and moved the monitor into place, detangling wires with practiced ease. “It’s the voice, nothing sexier than an Irishman who can sing. Anyway, I don’t have to see anything in him, s’not like we’re dating.” Then, grinning because any discussion of her own sex life made Thorn hilariously uncomfortable, added, “I just get off with him, is all. He’s got one _hell_ of a - ”

“Nope,” her brother shook his head and stuck his fingers in his ears. “Don’t want to hear it. Don’t need to hear it. You’re pure as the driven snow.”

“Where’d those two kids come from, then?” Rob’s younger brother Brian, their drummer (yet another ginger, their friends’ group was crawling with them, no wonder people thought they were Satanists when they went picnicking) sniggered. “Immaculate conception?”

“Don’t be daft,” Thorn rolled his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest. “Stork. Obviously.”

“Oh, yeah, obviously,” Brian nodded solemnly, then grinned, giving Thorn’s back a hearty thump. “Hear you’re getting some tonight. Cheers.”

“I’m not - it’s not - _Dis_ ,” Thorn growled and glared daggers at his sister, but she was totally immune to the Durin Death Stare. Like how Cyclops and Havoc’s powers couldn’t be used against one another, one Durin could not intimidate another Durin. Two forces of nature that canceled each other out.

Countering her brother’s flashing angry eyes with an innocent look of her own, Dis shrugged. “What? So people are happy for you. Deal with it.”

“There’s probably something against it in the school handbook,” Thorn muttered, leaning against the stage.

“Probably not,” Dis, ever the optimist, replied. “There’s probably something against him fucking _me_ in the handbook, but I’m not the one who wants to fuck him, so let’s just let it ride, shall we? Anyway, come August, Killi moves up a level and you’re in the clear!”

Thorn was not sure what prospect horrified him more: the idea that if he _did_ manage to hit it off with his nephew’s schoolteacher he might very well come home the next day to find the entire extended family gathered round the kitchen table with a cake or the idea that nothing might come of it at all and the cake would be some kind of awful no-sex consolation prize. Either way, he was pretty sure there was a cake immediately in his future and the notion did not fill him with utter delight.

Thorn drifted away from the stage and took a seat at the bar, settling in with a pint and a brooding expression on his face. He must have looked fairly forbidding since, as the place began to fill up, no one took the empty chair beside him, not even to ask if they could drag it away to a table for a friend. Maybe Harry was right and the denim-on-denim was a bad idea.

Halfway through the band’s first song - “Whiskey in the Jar” with an almost excessive number of guitar riffs because Nick (the lead guitarist) was an unrepentant attention whore - a warm, rough hand fell onto his shoulder. “‘Evenin’, mate,” Dwain said, taking up the empty seat beside Thorn - and nearly a quarter of the counter space. “Save me a seat? Thoughtful of you. Where’s your date?”

“Not you too,” Thorn groaned, sliding a tenner across the bar, ignoring Dwain’s protest that he could buy his own booze. “What’d she do, take out ad space in the Times?”

“Text,” his cousin smiled, holding up his phone so Thorn could read the message.

**ATTN: The drought is over. Thorn’s finally getting some. Break open a bottle and rejoice @ Finn’s Wake Fri, 9pm.**

“The _drought_?” he asked, looking at the stage where Dis was sawing away on her fiddle, happy as a lark. “Her interest in my sex life is bordering on pathological, the brat.”

“Eh, I think she’s just relieved. She does live with you and you get tetchy when you’re chaste.”

Thorn was about to indignantly protest that he did _not_ get tetchy, when was he tetchy, he was _never_ tetchy (the vocalisation of which, he realised, would sound awfully tetchy) when Dwain snorted into his beer and nodded at something over Thorn’s shoulder .“That him?”

Thorn turned around saw Bill Baggins, looking slightly out of place in his little cardigan - the one with the patches again, it was like he knew all Thorn’s weak points after an hour - and corduroys. His honey coloured hair was standing on end, as though he’d run his fingers through his curls, attempting to tame them and just making them look more disheveled. The only thing he was missing was a pair of wire-rimmed glasses and he’d be just the sort of bookish Classics student Thorin used to delight in debauching before he left uni to do something useful with his life.

Dwain took in the slightly slack-jawed look on his cousin’s face and chortled. “Dis was right,” he observed with an approving nod. “He’s just your sort.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the answer to the question of "Will you be continuing this?" is YES! Maybe not quickly or reliably, but yes! Bill will be coming back into the mix in the next chapter, for now, enjoy the punk rock dwarves.


	3. The Trouble with Small Towns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill has made his entrance! But it's not easy trying to hit it off with someone when your extended family of rebels, renegades and really poor decision makers call you in for some impromptu babysitting. In a bar. Does that sound dysfunctional to you? That's how you know for sure that the 'Ris have arrived.

Bill spied Thorn only a moment after Dwain pointed him out, he smiled and walked over to them. “Good crowd, this - though all the students do make me feel ancient,” he shouted over the pounding baseline and self-indulgent guitar riffs. Nick, being a tosser again.

“Yeah, I’m quietly horrified myself every time Dis has a gig here, they seem to get younger and younger each time,” Thorn observed grimly. He turned to Dwain, intent on introducing them, but he was vacating his barstool with a grin on his face that was positively silly. At least, Thorn thought so, Bill was giving him quite the side-eye. It was probably the head tattoos, they had a tendency to frighten off the uninitiated. “Dwain, this is Bill, Killi’s teacher. Bill this is Dwain, my cousin and one of Phil and Killi’s unsuitable male guardians.”

Dwain stuck out of one his massive paws and practically shook Bill’s entire arm. “Pleasure,” he said, still grinning like an idiot. “Take my chair, I was just leaving to, ah, hear better.”

It was the most transparent excuse to get two people alone together that Thorn had ever heard and he half expected Bill to turn right around in his penny loafers and walk out based solely on Dwain’s pathetic merits as a wingman.

Actually, this was a high for him. Thorn could never forget a particularly memorable night out in London with a Cambridge double first who Dwain introduced him to by saying, ‘My mate’s been dying to suck you off all night, put him out of his misery, would you?’

“Nice to meet you!” Bill called to Dwain’s retreating back, hopping up onto the stool.

“What’re you drinking?” Thorn asked, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket.

“Oh no, don’t worry about it,” Bill said, taking out his own wallet. It was a buttery, supple looking leather while Thorn’s was a gift from Dis made of duct tape that made his credit cards sticky. As Bill ordered for himself and handed his money to the bartender before Thorn could insist on paying, he felt his heart sink a little in his chest.

Maybe this really wasn’t a date. Maybe Bill genuinely came because he liked neo-punk, alt-traditional, anti-folk bands fronted by Irishmen with ridiculous facial hair. Or maybe he was spying on the lot of them on orders of his poncy boss with the hair.

Or maybe he’d been spending too much time reading Stieg Larsson and not enough time in the dating scene and he had consequently lost whatever game he might once have been said to possess. That’s what the kids called it these days, wasn’t it? ‘Game.’

Thorn liked to think he had game. Once. When he was young and didn’t spy hints of grey in his beard when he got out of the shower, but those days were long gone.

It was only when Bill tried to nudge his bar stool closer to him and nearly fell over that Thorn thought they might both have come for the same purpose, but were simply equally bad at flirting. His arm shot out and caught Bill on the thigh and the other went around his back steadying him. The flush that spread noticeably across his cheeks and the tips of his ears might have been attributed to embarrassment at his own clumsiness, but Thorn (terrible flirt though he may be) couldn’t help but notice a disappointment flutter of Bill’s eyelashes when his hand left his leg.

Then he licked his lips again. _Does he realise how_ distracting _that is?_

Their eyes met and the two of them wound up laughing the awkward laughter of two grown men who were acting the part of teenage boys, too thick and nervous to say what was on their minds. Bill proved himself to be the braver of the two.

“Sorry,” he said, taking a long drink of beer. “If I seem a bit jumpy. It's...my first time out and about in a while, I don’t usually, erm, take people up on invitations out if I don’t know them well. This is sort of uncharted territory for me. A break in the routine.”

“What made you break it?” Thorn asked, cocking an eyebrow, sexily, he hoped. Was it possible for eyebrows to be sexy?

“I’ve got this friend - well...yeah, we’ll call him a friend,” Bill said, probably not intending to be mysterious, but sounding damned mysterious to Thorn. Was he a friend or a _friend_? Old-fashioned, probably, but he’d never really been into polyamorous relationships. One night stands were all well and good, but he’d prefer there only be two of them...standing. As it were.

“Anyway,” Bill continued, “my parents, er, sorry, I don’t usually get personal like this, but ah, well, they passed away. Rather suddenly, about six months ago, I’ve become a bit of a hermit since then.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Thorn replied and he did sound genuinely sorry. “That’s hard.”

Something in his tone conveyed a deep understanding causing Bill to ask, “Yours have passed on too, have they?”

“Yeah,” Thorn said. The real answer was ‘more or less,’ but just implying that both parents were dead was easier. “My mum a few years ago. Stroke. Sudden, like yours. It was bloody awful at the time, but I think it was a mercy she went quick. If she’d had to go through the therapy and hospital stay afterward...well, she’d have hated that.”

 _What are you doing?_ That voice of reason in his head that sounded like Dis was screaming at him. _Don’t bring up your weird personal life on a first date! He’ll give you the number for his therapist, not his mobile!_

But Bill was nodding and seemed relieved to have someone to talk to about it. “My mum was the same way, always just...it’s such a cliche, but full of life. Poor Dad was more of a homebody, but she’d drag him out and about - that’s what my friend said, Gordon, he said neither of them would want me to spend my thirties moping about watching telly all the time. Best to get out there and do some living. He’s a bit mental, Gordon, but sometimes he’s insightful.” With a bit of a wry grin, he added, “You’ve probably seen him out and about, he’s tall, long grey beard, always wearing a cap. He looks homeless, but he’s actually not.”

Thorin nearly choked on his beer. “You’re friends with The Wizard?”

Bill laughed out loud. “You know him, then?”

“I know him a bit, we’re not friends, but I’ve met him, yeah, a few times,” Thorin said, grinning back. Wait ‘til Dwain heard Bill was mates with The Wizard, he’d laugh his arse off. “He brings his car in to have in serviced all the time. He drives that ancient Volvo, yeah? Got it fixed up to run on biodiesel so it always smells of chips.”

“I told him that!” Bill said, smacking his hand against the bar. “I’ve told him I always smell like a fish fry when I ride in his car, but he says he’s never noticed any smell.”

“That’s mad,” Thorn shook his head. “I’d never imagine you were friends with The Wizard - that’s what my nephews started calling him. How’d that happen?”

“To be fair, he’s more of an uncle-type than a friend,” Bill explained. “Family friend, he and my mum went way back. That’s why I thought Randall was being too hard on your sister, Gordon’s always been great to me and we’re not even related by blood. He hasn’t got a lot of family, so - ”

But Bill’s explanation of how he’d become friends with one of the legends of their town was cut short due to a commotion by the door.

“Miss, you can’t take a kid in here,” one of the bouncers was explaining, trying to physically stop a short, stocky woman with short silver hair from entering the pub. She looked fairly young so either she went grey unfairly early or it was an excellent dye job.

“I’d like to see you stop me,” she glared. By her side was a little red-haired boy with a smattering of freckles over his nose and cheeks. He was around Killi’s age and seemed slightly embarrassed of the woman’s behaviour, scuffing the toe of his trainers into the mat just inside the door and clutching a book in his hands.

“Hang on, Mark, I can vouch for her,” another bouncer said and smiled at the woman a little grimly. “Nicky giving you the run-around again, eh, Dory?”

“Is it a weekday ending in ‘y’?” she asked rhetorically, putting a hand on the child’s shoulder and steering him past the bouncers. “Of course he is!”

At times like this, Thorn regretted being taller than average and a conspicuous target. Even if he hunkered down, he’d never be able to hide behind Bill, who’d turned toward the commotion, all surprise on his face and announced their presence to the woman Thorn sought to avoid by calling, “Oren?”

The little boy looked absolutely stunned before he grinned broadly. “Mr Baggins!” he said, wriggling out of his mother’s grasp and trotting over to the bar. “Hi! What’re you doing here?”

“What are _you_ doing here?” Bill asked, looking over the lad’s head at his mother who stomped right over, looking perturbed.

To be fair, that was her usual expression when her boyfriend was shirking responsibilities, which was _always_. Dorothy Rees was 5’3 inches of broad-shouldered, buxom peevishness. She had a round face which could be quite sweet, enhanced as it was by dimples whose presence she highlighted with silver studs that twinkled when she smiled. Now they only made her frown look more menacing.

“Thorn,” she said, ignoring Bill entirely, “can you watch him for a minute? I have to M-A-I-M his S-P-E-R-M D-O-N-O-R.”

“I can spell, Mum,” Ori mumbled at the floor. But his mother was already fighting her way to the crowd by the stage. Thorn got off his bar stool and lifted Ori up so he was sitting with his back to the stage.

“Want something to drink?” he asked, positioning himself like a shield between the little boy and the scene his mother would inevitably cause when she got her hands on Nick. “Juice? Coke?”

Ori shook his head. “No thanks,” his eyes flickered to Bill, who nodded at the book in his hands.

“What’s that you’ve got there? Not something for class.”

“Nope, I did my spelling already,” Ori declared proudly, turning the book over so Bill could see the cover. “It’s _The Secret of the Fortune Wookie_ , I just got it from the library, Mum took me after she got out of practise. It’s good so far, but I like _Darth Paper_ better.”

Bill nodded knowingly. “Ah, well, who can compete with Darth Paper? Did you make your own?”

“No, I tried, but it was too hard. Dad made one for me, but the cat ate it and threw it back up and he said he’d make another, but he hasn’t yet.”

Thorn glanced over his shoulder. Dory’d fought the crowd successfully and was now storming the stage. Nick looked panicked and Thorn found he didn’t have a shred of sympathy for him. He was a show-off who still thought he was eighteen and free to do as he pleased, never mind the consequences. He had no idea why Dory hadn’t kicked him to the curb years ago, except for the fact that she loved him beyond all reason. At least he didn’t have the _most_ ridiculous love life of all his friends.

Dory had Nick in a headlock now and was dragging him bodily from the stage. The crowd was cheering and Ori turned his head to look, but Thorn shifted to the left and asked him, “Did you go with your mum to watch her practise?” To Bill he added, “Dis and Dory play roller derby together. At least, they do when Dis doesn’t have a show.”

“Mum’s angry with her too,” Ori informed Thorn. “She said the back-up blocker’s rubbish. I wasn’t watching, really, I was doing my homework.”

“Good lad,” Thorn said approvingly. “Spelling, you said?”

“Yep,” Ori nodded. “Ten words, but I know them all - ‘cept ‘fruit,’ I forget that there’s a ‘i’ in it.”

“That one’s tricky,” Bill nodded. “Still, you’ve got until Monday to get it down, I’m sure you’ll do splendidly - ah, there’s your mother.”

At some point between “Whiskey in the Jar” and “Maids When You’re Young,” Nick’s shirt had come off. Dory was dragging him to the door by the chain that hung between his pierced nipples. “You are such an _arsehole_ ,” she was muttering. “‘Oh, nope, sorry love, I can’t watch Ori during your one night out a week, I’ve got work - ’”

“This _is_ work!” Nick protested. “I’m getting paid!”

“Yeah? And how much of it’s been spent on your tab?” Dory asked, dropping the chain and folding her arms. “I don’t mind you being in the band, but be _honest_ with me instead of sneaking around! I know ‘honest’ isn’t really a word in your vocabulary, you might want to ask your son about it, he’s an excellent speller.”

“Oh, now, don’t bring the kid into it - ”

“Hi, Dad!” Ori waved from Thorn’s barstool.

Nick stared, dumbfounded. “You. _Literally_. Brought the kid into it.”

“What was I supposed to do?” Dory threw her hands in the hair, exasperated. “Leave him in the car? I had to park in a bloody alleyway, it’s probably full of weirdos and pedos.”

“Jesus, Dory!”

Thorn had enough, he walked up to the two of them and folded his arms, silencing them with a meaningful throat-clearing. “As much fun as it’s been listening to your little domestic, I think it’s probably long past time for Ori to be in bed, don’t you?”

Dory and Nick exchanged slightly chagrined glances. “Yeah, reckon it’s about that time,” Nick nodded, moving around Thorin with his hand held out to help Ori down from the stool. “Ready for bed, kiddo?”

“Not really,” Ori said, tucking his book under his arm. “Will you read to me?”

“Aw, you’re a big lad now, you can read by yourself and all.”

“Yeah,” Ori nodded, then tilted his head up and squeezed his father’s hand, “but I like it better when _you_ do. You do the best voices.”

“That’s one point in your favour,” Dory muttered, twirling her car keys around in her hand. “Let’s go. Thanks, Thorn, for looking after - Oh my God!”

All of a sudden, Dory seemed to realise that her son’s teacher was privy to a frankly embarrassing side of her life that she’d rather not share with someone who held her son’s academic future in his hands. She had high hopes for Ori, hopes that he’d go to university and actually get a degree, not wind up trying to put himself through school while working full-time because he’d been stupid and had a fling with a guy with a great arse and terrible decision-making skills while his birth control was on the fritz due to the regime of antibiotics he was on for a bad throat infection.

Actually, that probably wasn’t going to happen to him at all, but she still wanted Ori to do well in school. Luckily, Mr Baggins seemed to be taking everything in stride. He smiled at her, pleasant as always and waved. “See you Monday, Ori,” he said cheerfully. “And remember that ‘i.’”

“I will Mr Baggins,” Ori nodded. “Good night. ‘Night Uncle Thorn!”

“‘Night, Ori,” Thorn said, managing a smile for him and a disapproving glare at his parents who sheepishly slunk to the door. When he finally was able to reclaim his stool, he drained the rest of his beer in one go.

From the stage, Rob took the mic and called to the crowd, “Well, that’s live music for you! Call it performance art, eh? Lucky for you folks, our Dis is an old hand at the guitar, isn’t that right, sweetheart?”

“It’ll make the show a damned bit shorter,” she shouted, adjusting Nick’s guitar strap over her own shoulder. “Speaking of that little lovers’ spat, don’t we know a song about a scolding wife?”

“We do, as a matter of fact!” Rob nodded, then paused. “Er...she’s not still here, is she?”

“I’d never met Ori’s father before,” Bill commented to Thorn. “I suppose I still haven’t.” Scratching the back of his head, a little awkwardly he continued as the band started up again, “Do you want to take a walk outside? Bit hard to hear yourself think, never mind talk.”

“What?” Thorn asked, leaning closer to Bill at the same time that Bill moved in to inquire again. As a result, the shorter man’s lips just about brushed Thorin’s ear and his breath ghosted over his cheek.

“Want to go outside?” Bill asked again and Thorn looked at him like the question was completely absurd.

“God, yeah,” he agreed. “Let’s take a walk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not intend to genderswap Dori, but I couldn't get over the idea of short, compact roller girl!Dory and her on-again/off-again commitment-phobic boyfriend Nick the guitar player having an adorably precocious geeky baby!Ori. I hope no one minds the unexpected use of Rule 63.


	4. The Trouble with Extended Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thorn Durin has one sister, no parents, two nephews and an absolutely _enormous_ family. It's usually better to introduce a new significant other to them slowly, one at a time, over a period of several months, so as not to overwhelm the uninitiated. Better by far than plunging, head-first, into a significant portion of the flock, but since when has luck ever been on Thorn's side?

Clean air laws sent them walking through a haze of cigarette smoke outside the pub door. Thorn took a deep breath to calm himself; the smell of stale tobacco and its byproducts always made him feel at home, but Bill coughed and the two of them strode quickly down the street, away from the stink. 

“I was saying,” Bill continued, once he could breathe again, “I’d never met Ori’s father before, his mother always comes to meetings and things when a guardian’s needed.”

Thorn snorted, “I’m not surprised in the least, Nick’s a wanker. Dory’s practically a single mum - of two children, he can’t hold a steady job apart from the band he’s...not very responsible.”

Thorn wasn’t one to gossip and although Bill was Ori’s teacher it still felt strange to talk about his pupil’s parents with him. If he was just some random man he found in the bar and decided to take a stroll with, he wouldn’t go blabbing about Nick’s past as a petty criminal. Especially since he wasn’t entirely sure that the ‘past’ portion was accurate. Poor old Dory.

“Hmm,” Bill nodded noncommittally and did not press for more information. “She’s busy, though, a waitress, I think.”

Thorn nodded affirmatively, “Yep, at this vegetarian place her mum owns, it’s gotten really popular the last five years or so, since everyone’s gone all locally grown organic. It’s alright, I like meat, though.”

They were walking between streetlights so when Bill side-eyed him with a smirk at the unexpected double-entendre, Thorn’s wince at his own ludicrousness was less noticeable. Thankfully, Bill was a nice man and decided to be merciful. “And she’s taking classes too, I don’t know where she finds the time.”

“Neither do I,” Thorn shook his head. “I always said I meant to go back to school, but never got ‘round to it. Not cut out for uni, I suppose, not everyone is.”

“Oh, what did you go for?” Bill asked curiously.

Thorn shrugged, a little uncomfortably, “I thought I might be an architect, dunno, I don’t think I was really passionate about it or anything. Just something I thought I might do. If I’d really wanted it, I’d have gone back.”

“Why did you leave?” Bill inquired. “If you don’t mind my asking.

Once again, Thorn’s broad shoulders raised and lowered themselves vaguely. “Eh, life.”

It was such a deliberate non-answer that Bill did not push for specifics. He seemed to sense pushing Thorn to talk about himself was a sure way to get him to calm up and so he decided to change tactics a bit, “I’ve always wanted to be a teacher, I just, I dunno, I love kids. That sounds hackneyed, doesn’t it? Or creepy?”

Thorn’s laugh was deep and rich, seemed to come right from the centre of his chest. Bill stepped slightly closer to him so that their arms were almost touching as they walked. Almost, but not quite. “I think if you admit it sounds creepy, you’re not creepy,” Thorn replied. “Er...maybe. I dunno, I can’t say I like kids, just in general. I like the ones I know, they’re alright.”

It was a little weird, being out of the pub. The closeness necessitated by tight quarters and the noise meant that bumping up against one another would look too obvious, but walking down the street with their hands stuck in their pockets felt deliberately coy, as though they were tender young school girls waiting for their beau to make the first move. Thorn wished he’d brought his beer with him, though it took more than one pint to get him hammered. Then again, being drunk was no guarantee of smoothing over awkward social encounters; if anything, that could make it worse.

The tinny sounds of Martin Landau’s voice hissing, _Pull the string! Pull the string!_ from Thorn’s pocket interrupted their conversation. Bill looked mildly curious as Thorn flipped his mobile open with a muttered, “It’s an inside joke,” before barking, “What?” at the caller.

“Did you bring your own car?” Dwain replied, though Thorn knew it was him before he spoke; Dis programmed the ringtone in for him special. It was, as he told Bill, an inside joke, but not a very funny one now that he thought about it and he dearly hoped that the other bloke didn’t ask for an explanation once he was through with what he _dearly_ hoped was an emergency and not just idle chit-chat. Didn’t Dwain know he was on a _date?_

“No, Dis and I came with Gav, why?”

Dwain sighed, heavily and Thorn frowned as his cousin said, “Because our little cousin, flesh of our flesh, blood of our blood - ”

“Get _on_ with it,” Thorn growled impatiently.

“ - is an idiot, no, you fucking are.” This last was not directed at Thorn, but evidently at Gav himself whose voice Thorn heard in the background. Shooting a look at Bill that he hoped was more apologetic than furious, he stuck a finger in his ear to cancel out the background noise and listened harder. “You’re going to need a new fucking engine, you little shite.” 

“I’m not!” Gavin protested, muffled. “It starts alright, it just won’t...go anywhere. Let me talk to Thorn, you’re a pessimist, I want to know what he thinks - ”

“What happened,” Thorn demanded. “Can this wait?”

“You’ll be waiting a while,” Dwain informed him, “seeing as how you’ve not got a ride home. Little Gav snapped the cam belt in his car, by the sound of it. Here he is.”

“You’re an idiot,” Thorn informed him as soon as the phone was handed over, before Gavin had time to put a single question to him. “You’re going to need a new fucking engine, you little shite. Why didn’t you tell me your cam belt needed to be replaced?”

Gimli took after his dad in many ways, from the red hair to the surly disposition when he didn’t get his way. Evidently they also whinged the same way, “No one _told_ me it needed to be replaced. Is this going to get expensive?” 

“Oh, yeah. It’ll cost you an arm and a leg. If you’d told me it needed replacing, I could’ve done it for three-hundred quid or less for family,” Thorn explained, ready to pull his hair out in frustration. “But if it’s snapped, it’s probably taken half the engine out with it. You’ll either need a new engine, but since your car’s older’n dirt, you might want to scrap the lot, I won’t know ‘til I look inside it.”

“Can you do that now?” Gav asked, more quietly, evidently cowed.

“No I can-fucking-not right now, you can wait ‘til fucking Monday along with the rest of the fucking planet,” Thorn kicked a letterbox, the steel caps of his boots leaving a dent and a clang that made Bill startle beside him. “Fuck.”

“Sorry.” At least Gav was man enough to sound sheepish on the other end of the line.

“Not yet,” Thorn spoke ominously into the phone. “But you will be. Just wait there, I’m coming back.” Snapping his mobile shut, he turned toward Bill whose face was all sympathy and understanding. The slightly parted lips were _doing_ something to him, so he jerked his head back toward the pub. “My cousin just destroyed his car.”

“Which one?” Bill asked and Thorn actually laughed at that, scrubbing his hand back over his head. 

“Fair question. Gav - Gavin, erm, he wasn’t one of the ones you met, short, ginger, got a beard.”

“That seems to be a theme,” Bill smiled and got Thorn laughing again, running a hand over his chin and nodding.

“Yeah, well, the secret is we’re all ugly fuckers,” he grinned at Bill, who shook his head and scoffed before Thorn finished speaking. “It’s best to hide as much of the face as possible, you know, to avoid frightening children and small animals.”

“Now _that_ certainly isn’t true,” he said with a sly smile up at Thorn. “I’m sure you’re all very Eros and Psyche under there - sorry, too pedantic? I went in for Classics before I switched.”

Thorn just grinned again, no idea what Bill was going on about. He hadn’t a clue what he meant about Psyche or Eros, but the latter at least seemed to carry a hint of promise.

The show was done and the crowd was breaking out, so Thorn’s people were easily spotted with their gear and instruments outside the side door. “I can take the amps,” Brian was saying, “that’s no trouble, but I won’t be able to fit you lot in as well.”

“It’s not a bad walk,” Dis shrugged, hefting one of the smaller amps up into her arms, on the way to Brian’s van. 

“It is for me,” Gav protested, helping Rob with a larger one. “I do people’s taxes, I’m not a fucking car psychic! How was I do know the damn thing wanted replacing?”

“Shut up!” Dwain shouted at him. His mobile was in his hand and the illumination from the screen suggested the line was engaged. “Play your music so damn loud my ears’ll be ringing for days.”

“Put her on speaker!” Dis and Gav shouted at once. 

“I can drive anyone who needs a ride,” Bill piped up to offer as he and Thorn drew closer to the scene. 

“Shut up!” Dwain snapped again, but blanched when he saw that he’d just scolded the lad Thorn was trying to get off with (Worst. Wingman. Ever.) and looked positively horrified when he got an earful from whomever he was speaking to. “Not you, Ma, not you! Sorry, is Dad in? What?”

“Put her on speaker,” Thorn advised, folding his arms and glowering at Dwain, who quickly complied. “Why do you need Uncle Frank?”

“Because,” Dwain replied impatiently, having already explained the situation half a dozen times, though Thorn had no way of knowing it. “I rode the bike here, I can’t give any of you a lift and I don’t have the keys for the tow - what’s that? Two seconds, Ma, two seconds.” 

Once Dwain finished fumbling with the buttons (large hands and tiny keypads were never a good combination), a woman’s voice - unmistakably Glaswegian - sounded abruptly in the middle of the sentence, “ - fishing weekend with Uncle George, I told you just yesterday, do you never listen when I talk?”

“Every word, Ma, every word.” 

If Thorn wasn’t in such a shite mood, he probably would have been smirking. Dwain was a big bruiser of a lad, closer to seven feet than he was to six with shoulders on him that threatened to take out more than a few narrow doorways, but when he spoke to his mother, he was just as sweet as honey. But Thorn was in a shite mood and didn’t care how funny it was when Dwalin got scolded by his mum, he just wanted a nice, normal night out that didn’t end in family mayhem. Clearly too much to ask from whatever trickster god controlled his life.

Dwain ran a hand over his bare head and started in to speak again, “I’ll just take the bike over, leave it, take the tow - ”

“That’s too much trouble, don’t be daft,” his mother spoke up. “I’ll fetch you, I just need to put a coat on, I’ll be ten minutes.”

“Aunt Dora, you can’t see over the wheel!” Dis hopped over to Dwain’s side and shouted in the direction of the phone. 

“I’ll find a book to use as a perch,” was her aunt’s pert reply. “Ten minutes!”

The screen on Dwain’s phone went dark and he tucked it in his jacket pocket with a gusty sigh. Needing a target to vent his frustration on, he rounded on Gavin and accused him, “This is all your fault.”

“Not a car psychic!” he declared, throwing his arms up in the air and shoving Dwain’s chest. The older man didn’t move and only looked more pissed off. Dwain raised a fist warningly, but stopped himself from leveling it at Gavin’s head at a bark from Thorn.

“Ey!” Thorn shouted before they could get into it. “Not the time!”

His cousins looked over at him for a second before nodding at the same moment and turning away from one another. His voice said, ‘Not the time,’ his eyes said, ‘Not in front of this man I’m trying to have a proper date with, if you ruin this for me, I will _end_ you.’

“So, Bill,” Dis said, breaking the awkward silence that followed as they waited for Dwain’s mother. “Enjoy the show? Or did you two, ah, find somewhere a bit more...cozy to secret yourselves away before Gav ruined everything?”

Thorn shot her the same glare he’d fixed upon his cousins, but, just as it was earlier, his anger never dampened Dis’s delight in taking the piss. Luckily, Bill was a calmer chap than him by far, nothing seemed to faze him, it was like his soul was coated in Teflon. 

“The show was great, I had a really good time,” he said, smiling up at her. “Thanks for inviting me, I was telling your brother I need to get out of the house more.”

“That’s perfect because so does he!” Rob crowed happily. “We had the same exact conversation, what, a week ago? Almost? About how Thorn’s always working or home, needs to have a night on the town, forget his troubles - ”

“It’s a lot easier to forget your troubles when certain people aren’t causing more of them,” Thorn scowled and Gav turned back around, his face contorting in agony, the same agony, Thorn felt settling in his bones and tensing his muscles.

“This isn’t my _fault,”_ he was back to doing his very best Gimli impersonation. “And I’m _sorry_ , I don’t know how many times you want me to say it - ”

A honking like a foghorn startled the whole group as a massive tow truck pulled illegally up to the sidewalk where they were standing. Luckily the street was nearly deserted and hopefully the neighbourhood’s finest police officers were off nabbing drug abusers and not middle-aged women with bright blue hair hopping out of the driver’s side, looking entirely too chipper for midnight. 

“Hello, darlings!” she waved, pushing a pair of black-rimmed catseye glasses more securely up her nose. She looked a bit on the young side to be Dwain’s mother, though she had the sort of face that might have been forty-five or sixty and it was no exaggeration when Dis declared her unable to see over the steering wheel; Bill was not a tall man himself and the top of Dwain’s mother’s head hardly reached his shoulder. “I’ve come to rescue you!”

“Thanks, Auntie,” Gav muttered, blushing as red as his hair. Dwain bent nearly double to kiss his mother on the cheek before he set about the task of hitching his cousin’s defeated car to the back of the truck. 

“That’s alright, have your cousins been picking on you?” she asked kindly. “I did the same thing when I was nineteen, it’s not something that’s asked about when you take your driving test. Poor Blaise and I were stuck on some awful backroad in the middle of nowhere until a farmer let us ride his tractor into town and use a telephone.”

“That sounds like the beginning of a seventies horror film that ends with a chainsaw chase,” Brian pointed out with equal parts amusement and alarm.

Dora laughed and shrugged coyly, “Well, they never found the body and that’s all I’ll say on that. Who needs a lift? I’ve room for two more, but it’ll be a squeeze.”

“Dis, Thorn and I, they came in my car,” Gav explained, then glanced at Bill nervously. “Er...’less Thorn would rather ride with…”

“Oh, the rainmaker!” Dora exclaimed with pleasure, then clapped a hand over her mouth when she realized she’d spoken aloud.

Then it was Thorn’s turn to blush. Leaving Bill’s side, he grabbed his sister’s arm and hissed, “You sent that text to _Aunt Dora?”_

Dis shrugged helplessly and grinned faintly. “It was a mass text,” she offered by way of explanation. “She’s one of the masses.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Bill said, breaking the ice and extending his hand to the older woman. “I’m Bill.”

“Dora, _very_ nice to meet you,” she beamed up at him. Then, peering around his shouldered, chided, “Thorn, stop manhandling your sister.”

Thorn let her go, partially because he was told to, but also because Dwain had managed to get Gavin’s car ready to be dropped off in front of the shop and was standing in back of his mother with his arms folded, glaring at his cousin again. It was time to split up.

“Er,” Dis said, because no one else looked ready to make a decision. “How about Thorn and I ride with Bill and Gav’ll go with Aunt Dora? I’ll just drop Harry and Gimmers off in the car. Oh, wait, no, someone’s got to get Gav’s car off the tow, erm, _I’ll_ ride with Dwain and we’ll go up the shop and - ”

“I’ll ride with Gav and Auntie,” Thorn said at last, swallowing down yet another sigh. _This_ was precisely while he stayed in most nights, putting a toe outside his own front door spelled disaster for him, always. “That makes sense, then I’ll drive Harry back when I get home or she can spend the night on the couch, I’m sure Gimli will be thrilled.”

“It really isn’t any trouble for me to take someone if that’s easier,” Bill offered, generous to the last.

“No, no, it’s okay, really,” Thorn scrubbed a hand over his face in frustration. “Thanks, though.”

“Er, alright, if you’re sure,” Bill said and shifted a bit on his feet, looking at all the people gathered around them before glancing up at Thorn and giving another one of those heartfelt smiles again. “I did have a good evening, it was...well, a good change of pace for me. Maybe we could do it again? At my place, I’ll cook supper then, maybe…”

Thorn was struck dumb and let Bill trail off so long that he began to look concerned. He’d had a good time? After all of the comings and goings and the unexpected babysitting and the noise and the swearing and the near-fight and the seemingly endless number of people that Thorn knew and was responsible for, he wanted to see him _again?_

It occurred to Thorn that this meant Bill Baggins might not be quite sane. Just as quickly, it occurred to him that sanity was not something he could afford to be picky about - and that perhaps his life meant he was better suited for someone who was slightly unbalanced. Also, there was the possibility he’d wear a wool slipover, something about those always _did_ something to Thorn. Especially if they had an argyle pattern.

Bill opened his mouth, seemed about to retract the offer so Thorn rushed in, almost tripping over his words. “Sounds good,” he said in a rush.

“Great!” Bill replied, relieved. “How’s Saturday?”

Thorn looked doubtful, “I don’t know, Dis has...gigs and practise, so I usually watch the boys - ”

“I’ll take them!” Dora offered immediately, just as his sister shouted, “I’ll bring them along!”

“No no, dear,” Dora shook her head and insisted, “I’ll have them overnight, it isn’t any trouble, I’ll give them ice cream for supper and we’ll watch films that’ll keep them up all night so they’ll sleep all through the next day for you when I bring them home.”

“Fantastic!” Dis clapped her hands and bounced up and down, somehow gleeful and maniacal at the same time. “It’s a date! Isn’t it Thorn?”

“It’s a date,” he confirmed with a nod.

“A date,” Bill echoed, grinning from ear to ear. “Wonderful! Well, good night. Pleasure to have met you all!”

As the street was filled with cries of, “Good night!” “Nice to meet you too!” and “Thanks for taking him off our hands!” Thorn couldn’t stop smiling to himself. Despite how horribly, to his way of thinking, the evening had gone, at least next time there would be no confusion over whether it was or was not, in actuality and not just his fevered imagination, a date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, un-betaed, un-Britpicked, I did my best, but let me know if anything is so glaringly out of place it's painful. Also, for anyone curious as to what was going on the morning of that fateful school meeting, I wrote a prequel chapter of sorts on my tumblr: http://madamefaust.tumblr.com/post/59742671154/before-the-beginning-for-the-trouble-with-chocolate


End file.
